Scarlett of the Mounted Part 8

VI

EVELYN SEEKS COUNSEL

A few days later Evelyn, accompanied by Sarah, knocked at the door of St. Andrew's Mission, near Perdu. An Indian woman opened to her, and on her asking for Mr. Maclane, the minister came forward with a cordial welcome.

"I won't invite you in, since just at present my study is in requisition as a hospital, and in any case you will doubtless prefer the veranda with its vista of the mountains."

"And your lovely garden," added Evelyn, glancing at the beds in which vegetables and ornamental plants were growing in orderly profusion. "I never supposed that cultivation was possible so far north."

"That is a common mistake," replied the minister. "But it is the same with plants as with people: wherever it is possible for them to grow it is intended that they should be cultivated; by which I do not mean that we should take the nature out of them, teaching them tricks and artificial ways; I mean that we should improve the conditions surrounding them, in order that their natural tendencies and activities may have the widest scope for beneficent purposes."

"And yet"--Evelyn looked up and down the road--"you seem to be almost the only one who recognizes these possibilities. All the cabins seem to have been dropped in uncompromising rows along the highways, as if they were so many children's toys taken out of cardboard boxes labeled 'Made in Germany'."

"Ah, most of the folk who come here are so busily engrossed in spading up the soil for treasure they have no time to till and sow. Yet our short summer of long days is capable of harvests that would yield pure gold in a land of canned supplies, where men get to long for green food as for water in the desert. Metz, the pioneer baker of Perdu, a far-sighted German, is raking in the gold-dust that other men laboriously pan out, by the sackful, simply by adding a fresh lettuce leaf, or radish, to every plate of fried eggs and bacon that he serves.

Brackett of Atlin is famous for the beauty of his poppy patch that blazes like a banner on a dusty mountainside, no less than for the succulence of the turnips with which he regales his friends, all grown on a tiny corner of an auriferous claim that overhangs the sluiceboxes.

Dr. Milne of Dawson received a prize for the tomatoes and celery he took down from his far-north home to the exposition in Victoria, on the occasion of the visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales. Indeed, there was a story going the rounds that on the third day of the exposition, when the good doctor wanted to subst.i.tute fresh produce for his own, which, by that time had wilted, he could find none in Victoria to match their size. And I myself am not a little proud of my own sweet-peas."

He handed Evelyn the fragrant blossoms he had been cutting as he talked.

"Thank you. They are indeed lovely. But I must not detain you too long.

I have come to you for that which I rarely seek--advice."

"I am wholly at your service." Maclane installed her in a steamer-chair and placed himself on a bench beside her. "Some ethical question?"

"Oh, dear, no! I am an Episcopalian," answered Evelyn, loftily. "Not but what I am very liberal," she hastened to add. "I subscribe to worthy charities of all denominations."

There was charity without resentment on Maclane's good brow as he merely said: "Then in what way can I help you?"

"My troubles are all of a practical nature."

"In that respect, perhaps, I am not the best adviser."

"But there's no one else in whom I can confide. People up here treat me in the strangest way. I never had such an experience."

"Well, well, I'll do my best."

"In the first place I don't know how to manage about money. Sergeant Scarlett has deposited several hundred dollars to my account in the Canadian Bank of Commerce, and as much more in the Bank of British North America, yet this morning, when I went to draw some, the managers of each informed me, apparently on their own responsibility, that I am put on a weekly allowance; that I may only draw so much, at stated times, and not a penny more. When I threatened to withdraw my patronage, they said that would be impossible till the account was closed. I went to three lawyers in succession to get out injunctions and things against them--but not a man would undertake the case. Oh, evidently all the officials are leagued in some sort of a ring or another, for when I went to the office of the _Perdu Claim_ and asked the editor to help me expose them, he only laughed. In New York, one or the other of the ten-cent magazines would have jumped at such an opportunity. However, that wouldn't matter so much if I could buy things from the stores on credit, but I find not a merchant will allow me to run up a bill. 'Cash down; spot cash for everything.' I never was so insulted in all my life."

"I am sorry people have seemed inhospitable," began Maclane, "but----"

"Oh, when it comes to that," Evelyn interrupted, "every one has been hospitality itself. Even the bank people, while officially they were insulting me, in the name of their wives and sisters offered to put up my party in some sort of fas.h.i.+on till we get settled. Hastie refuses to charge one penny for accommodating us till we find permanent quarters, though he had the impertinence--I'm sure he didn't mean to be impertinent--to suggest that we could stay indefinitely if we liked to work our way as chambermaids and waitresses and dishwashers and things.

Even that impudent editor offered to turn out of the wretched cupboard of a room at the back of his office where he lives, and sleep on a printing press if we liked to go stay there. At least a dozen families have invited us to bunk in their stuffy little cabins till my father's return. But that isn't my way of doing things at all. I'm accustomed to having the best and paying for it. Yet not a soul will accept my note or give me one pennyworth of credit. Just wait till my father hears how I am being treated!"

"Ah, your father!" Maclane caught at the idea. "A talk with your father would clear things up immediately."

"Yes, of course. But where is my father? how to get at him? I ask, ask, ask. Everyone has seen him quite recently. Every one a.s.sures me he is in his usual perfect health. Yet when I insist on knowing definitely which path he took, every one points vaguely north, south, east, west, toward the mountains."

"Then, for the present, why not accept that view of it?" the minister suggested. "It seems to be a matter of general knowledge that he is well, and off on a prospecting tour--and to a born prospector, such as is your father, there seem to be no limitations in the way of time, s.p.a.ce, endurance, when searching for treasure. Only one thing can be predicated with certainty: sooner or later a man must turn up at some base of supplies to renew his outfit. And then, knowing your anxiety, the whole district will see to it that he and you are put into communication with each other."

Miss Durant moved her daintily shod feet impatiently. "I'm not accustomed to waiting for anything that money can procure me. Why can't I send messengers flying to recall him, in every direction where there is a trail? One would think that hordes of these out-at-elbow camp hangers-on would be on their knees to me, begging for the chance--yet, though I have notices posted up everywhere offering a liberal salary and a thousand dollar bonus, I have had not one single application, not though I offer for security the Rainbow Mine."

"Poor child!" Maclane looked at her compa.s.sionately, wondering in what way the bitter truth might be most gently broken to her, and examining his own honest conscience to know if his should be the task. Before this was clear to him, however, to his infinite relief he saw the handsome person of the Sergeant, now clad in full uniform, coming up the garden path. "Why not take our friend Scarlett into our counsels?" he hastened to suggest.

"What! That insolent young man who pretended to take service with me!"

Miss Durant ignored the soldier's military salute.

"My dear," remonstrated the good Maclane, "our friend is greeting you."

"Ah, Sergeant," cried Evelyn, with hauteur, "I did not see you! That is to say, in my world a lady does not see a gentleman until she recognizes him."

"Faith, then, I'd best make myself invisible, lest when recognized I mayn't be seen." Scarlett turned to go.

"Oh, please remain," pleaded Maclane, "and help me advise with Miss Durant. Pending her father's arrival, she finds herself, er--financially embarra.s.sed--or rather at a loss to proportion her finances to her wants in the style to which she is accustomed. Now what do you suggest?"

"The first word lies with you, Dominie." His back toward the two, Scarlett had seated himself on the veranda steps and was playing with Telegraph and Wrangel, who, after a series of critical sniffings, had taken him unreservedly into their favor.

"Oh, not with me; not with any son of man," hastily disclaimed Maclane, who quite forgot that he had tried to throw the responsibility on Scarlett. "First always comes prayer. Take your troubles, my daughter, to the Divine Footstool."

"Oh, of course," replied Evelyn, petulantly, "I always say my prayers, and make the responses in church. But just now I'm asking you how I am to pay for daily bread."

"Well," Scarlett considered, "I should advise--to begin with--well----"

"You've said well twice," Evelyn sharply pulled him up. "Best let well alone."

"Pardon," retorted Scarlett. "Truth lies at the bottom of my well."

In spite of herself Evelyn smiled, and perceiving his advantage he went on: "After all, well is the best beginning when you can't find a better.

Why not for the present--just for a lark, you know--try roughing it?"

"Roughing it!" echoed Evelyn, in dismay. "Wouldn't that be a bit rough?"

"That's where the lark comes in," Scarlett a.s.sured her. "And we'd all make it as smooth as we know how."

"A capital idea!" Maclane slapped his knee and looked toward the sweet-pea vines as if calling on them to agree with him.

"So--er--original. Think what letters you can write to your friends at home, Miss Durant. And then that is the only way to get the full--er--bouquet of a country, so to speak; not from the tourist standpoint, but by living the life of the people of any cla.s.s who, by their work, are making it."

Miss Durant frowned, pondered a little, then smiled. "I rather like the notion. We came here largely to do good, and it will make the inhabitants feel more at ease; bridge over the social difference, as it were, if I adopt their mode of life. I really am very democratic."

"Then that's where ye'll feel out of place," Scarlett remarked.

"Wherever the surface is flat as a billiard table, as regards conditions, all cla.s.s distinctions being wiped out, it's there that aristocracy begins. The democrats insist on it!"

"Perhaps I can accommodate myself even to your idea of aristocracy,"

Evelyn remarked, ironically. "The first question is, can we find a suitable dwelling?"

"I've been investigating," answered Scarlett, "and I find at Lost Shoe Creek there is an abandoned cabin ye can have rent free; a really very decent affair 'twill be with a little patching, which the boys will be only too proud to lend a hand with."